Heal Me
by Fluffernutter8
Summary: A collection of oneshots each corresponding to a line from Melissa Etheridge's "Heal Me". Ratings from K-T, timing anywhere from preshow to farfuture, BB if any pairing.
1. Ain't It Crazy

A/N: Welcome to my new fic! The format was inspired by Bertie456's story, "You're Lovely to Me". It's a really fantastic fic. Go read it.

I'm not joking- do it right now.

Did you go yet?

That was quick!

Anyway, I figured that this would be a good way for me to write oneshots that wouldn't necessitate a really big chunk of time I don't have, but at the same time write a longer story. So, here's how the game is played: each chapter is prompted by a consecutive line from Melissa Etheridge's song Heal Me (which, along with Bones, I don't own. Just getting that straight). Repeated lines and choruses will not get their own chapter. The stories will range in POVs, settings, genres and lengths. This one's third person, kinda Booth-y, set somewhere between Woman in Limbo and Titan on the Tracks, just because of the lack of Cam. I hope you're ready. Let's roll!!

"**Ain't it crazy."**

"It's fascinating."

"It's creepy."

"We get to observe a subculture practically unnoticed by society without leaving the city."

"It's just a little "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for me."

"You're so close-minded, Booth. Your judgment is clouded by your refusal to see and appreciate alternate points of view."

"Oh, because you're so open to other people's thinking."

"I am...Don't give me that look! I might not agree with them, but I listen and if I disagree, I offer a rational counterargument."

"I listen. I'm an excellent listener; it's part of my job."

"But you're still close-minded."

"Okay, fine, you want to know why I find it creepy? It's just a little weird for me that the whole squint squad has a match to somebody in the loony bin. It's like you're twins!"

"What? No they're not. That's ridiculous. We are not their literal twins, nor are we related to them, and if you're being metaphorical, we don't resemble them in any way."

"We're going back there today, and when we do, I want you to really observe and then make a logical comparison."

"Fine."

"Fine."

_______ Psychiatric Center

Booth wasn't sure whether he felt more or less safe knowing that Merilee Watkins was guarding the crazy people of the District of Columbia. On the one hand, it seemed completely plausible that she would deal with an escaping inmate through a stern talking-to followed by cookies and pictures of her undoubtedly numerous grandchildren. On the other hand, she had a way of raising one eyebrow while staring right at him that made him feel guilty despite his complete innocence.

"That's the third time you've asked him for his badge!" Obviously his partner was not feeling twitchy under Merilee's stare.

"We just had a patient run away and get murdered, Dr. Brennan, so forgive me for being cautious."

"We only need to talk to people with who Mr. Strill interacted. From what we understand, he was a very low risk patient who did not even stay here all the time, so these people could presumably function in an almost normal capacity in society. There is very little reason to believe that something traumatic will occur."

_She doesn't care what kind of nuts they are, Bones!_ Booth thought, clenching his teeth. Aloud he said, "What Dr. Brennan means is that we understand your concerns and will do our best to make these interviews as comfortable as possible for everyone."

Merilee slid his badge across the security desk and buzzed them in. "Go on in, sugar," she beamed at him in her most grandmotherly manner, totally ignoring Brennan.

"Thank you," he said politely, unconsciously returning her grin with a charm smile of his own.

"You are such a stick up," his partner muttered out of the corner of her mouth as they entered the common room.

"You mean suck up, Bones. And I got us in, didn't I? Now you have to keep your end of the bargain. Watch the people while I interview them.

"How well did you know Robert Strill, uh, Maurice?" Booth found it rather disorienting to have to crane his neck so far back to look into the African-American man's face.

"Call me Gibbs," Maurice told him stiffly, "And I don't really pal around with the folks here when I check in."

"How often do you check in?"

"Every few months. The last time was in March."

"Do you mind me asking why you need to come here?"

"Yes, I do mind," Gibbs returned, "But I'll tell you anyway."

He didn't have a chance, because at that moment, a woman who Booth knew from the case file as Nora Cummings bumped into Gibbs' chair. Booth winced inwardly at her name, knowing that Nervous Nora would have immediately become her nickname. Miss Cummings, the youngest in the ward, had been a famous child cellist until she experienced a nervous breakdown at 19.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she apologized breathlessly, backpedaling hurridly.

"You're sorry?" Gibbs snarled, "You're sorry you PUT YOUR FILTHY HANDS ON MY CHAIR?! GOOD! You damn well should be." He took a breath and turned slowly back to the startled investigators. "I have territory issues," he explained as if nothing had happened.

You're also mildly bipolar," came a woman's voice from behind Booth and Brennan. Directing her gaze at Gibbs, the newcomer lit into him. "I told you to stop tormenting Nora. She can play three sonatas in the time it takes your Neanderthal brain to figure out that cello doesn't have an 'h'."

"Hey! You're out of line, Donnelly," Gibbs growled, "I've been nothing but nice to you since you showed up here. I got you a dining card, I do extra sharing in group therapy so you don't have to because I know that it hurts your Vulcan mind to do that. And you have repaid me by being aggressive and rude. You need to get off my back, lady."

Another woman scurried over to the group as the two inmates continued arguing. "This is just a way of showing how much they care for each other," she whispered loudly to Brennan and Booth, "They're nuts about each other. The other day in the cafeteria someone touched Maurice's tray, and Alicia made sure he didn't kill anyone. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen!"

Bones and Booth stared at her. Booth could see his partner taking in a breath to make one of her famously tactless suggestions, so he interrupted, hoping to get some actual information about the case from these interviews.

"What can you tell us about Robert Strill?"  
"Oh, Robbie? He was a sweetheart," she cooed, "Checked in and out every so often."

"What for?" Brennan asked.

"The diagnosis was paranoia, but I couldn't see it. Sure he had all these patches that said stuff like "they're coming" and "fight the man" but they were just cute. He was totally harmless."

"Uh huh," Booth said, unconvinced, before getting up and extending a hand. "Thank you for your time...?"

"Lacey Catrell," she answered, ignoring his outstretched hand and giving him a hug. "It was so nice to meet you."

"You too," Brennan murmured over her shoulder as she strode towards the door, determined to avoid a hug of her own.

Booth waited until they were past Merilee, in the SUV and onto the highway before he asked his question. "Well?"

"Alright," Bones admitted grudgingly, "Maybe they are a little bit like us."

"A little?" Booth said incredulously, "That woman Lacey was a hyped up Angela sequel. And Nerv- I mean Nora was the jumpy prodigy. She's girl-Zack."

"I suppose that, assuming Lacey Catrell's account of the murder victim is correct, he and Hodgins share a love of conspiracies."

"Exactly! And you are just like tough yet rational Alicia Donnelly."

"I wouldn't take it that far," Brennan countered, "She's much more aggressive than I am." Booth wisely kept his mouth shut. "It seems like we have the whole team accounted for except for you, Booth."

"I guess I don't fit into the squint-crazy doppelganger pattern."

She looked at him with the tiny frown that caused that little furrow between her eyebrows. "I don't think so, Booth. You and Gibbs are very similar."

"Me and PMS Man? 'Touch my stuff and die and by the way would you like a cookie?'!"

"Yes, you are very territorial as well. Remember your reluctance to let us come to Sid's? You said it was your place."

"Well I was there first an-"

"And when you said that you and I had separate stuff."

"That's not territorial, that's true. We are, _logically,_ good at different things."

"Yes, but you're unwilling to let me into 'your stuff'."

"Fine, maybe I am a little like Gibbs," Booth grumbled, "It doesn't mean anything." He trailed off, thinking of what their psychiatric ward counterparts had made him admit. Glancing over at his partner, he knew from the chilly look in her eyes that she was logically organizing the information in a manner much like a geometric proof: the psychiatric patients are parallel to my team- accepted. Booth and I are represented by Gibbs and Donnelly- accepted. Lacey Catrell said that their argument was "just a way of showing how much they care for each other"- accepted. Conclusion- arguments between Booth and me are a way of showing that we're "nuts about each other". She swallowed as she came to the inevitable end of her reasoning. Booth watched her face become impassive and waited for her to shut down completely. It was one thing to have Angela suggest that they should get together. It was okay for her to squeal when they bickered because they knew and trusted her. It was getting out of hand if a mental patient could see it, even if she was seeing it in their counterparts, not in the duo themselves. Booth kept his eyes firmly trained on the road, sure that things were going to get uncomfortable in the car. He was surprised when her tone was light.

"I'm sure it means nothing at all," she commented innocently before her voice became mocking, "Except that now I can call you PMS Man."

A/N: What did you think? Should I continue? I can't do this without your support. I'm looking at 30+ chapters and I need at least one review from each person who reads this to make it worthwhile. I specifically need comments on characterization. How'd I do with that? Thanks in advance!


	2. For A Moment There

A/N: Booth again. He just came to me when I was trying to think of something for this line.

**For a moment there...**

Seeley Booth liked being an FBI agent. Not just for the cars or the guns or the exciting cases, but because at the end of the day there was something uniquely satisfying about catching the bad guy in the name of truth, justice and the American way. One of the few things Booth disliked about the Bureau was all the legal mumbo-jumbo that was required: warrants and trials and appeals, on and on and on. Why couldn't they just be allowed to catch the bad guy?!

These sorts of thoughts occurred mostly on nights like this one when it was cold and rainy and Bones had insisted on listening to her station on the radio, even though it was his turn to pick. And she couldn't listen to the Dead or even some jazz. No, she had to listen to the most blaring, annoying rap station their radio could pick up.

He turned it off. "We're on a stake out here, Bones. We're supposed to be sneaky."

"Okay," she answered quietly. It was the demureness, the absentness and the general un-Bonesness of her reply that made him look at her. She was staring fixedly out into the gloomy mist. He kicked himself for not remembering sooner. He might hate Jason Bassel, might think he was a terrible inhumane bastard, but Brennan wanted to see him fry. They had a lot of evidence pointing to his being a serial murderer of foster children and every time anything related to foster care came up in a case, Brennan got itchy. She might not like psychology, but she was a regular goldmine.

They had waited another quarter of an hour before Booth decided that Bassel was not going to come back soon. He opened his door and walked to the house with Brennan following behind. They walked over to the front windows. Booth decided that even without a warrant, they could always look into the house. You never knew what little things you could find that could help you later on in a case. It was only when they had reached the windows and Booth had rubbed a hole in the condensation on it that they realized that the blinds were drawn. Booth shrugged and led the way around to the side, where they found the curtains drawn as well. By the time they got to the back windows, Booth was not surprised. But he turned his head as his partner growled low in her throat and dug into her pocket. He couldn't see what she was getting out, but once she stuck something in the door and jiggled, it became clear.

"Bones, what are you doing?! Law, remember? We're supposed to follow the protocols, which means no breaking and entering."

She grunted softly and ignored him. The lock clicked and she kicked the door open. She glanced back at him over her shoulder and for one moment, she didn't look like the rule abiding, justice serving Bones he knew. For one frozen piece of time, he looked into her serious, angry eyes and saw her father in her face: breaking rules to do what he thought was right.

Her voice was low and intense when she spoke. "We can waste time with a warrant or we can go get some evidence that might help us catch this worthless, murdering bastard."

An hour later they were sitting silently in the car, Booth white-knuckling the steering wheel while Brennan stared out the window again. Finally Booth broke the silence.

"You okay?"

"Yes," she responded automatically, then reevaluated. "No. I don't know what happened in there, Booth. I just thought of all those kids he's hurt and I didn't care that what I was doing was wrong. I broke the law, Booth. You have to arrest me." Her voice sounded lost and slightly dazed.

"No, I don't," he said, talking over her contradiction. "You were doing what was right. You had a momentary weakness because you're human and that's what happens. You might not have known those kids, but you knew that you have to put their murderer in jail."

"Usually I 'know' things from something I can see and touch and examine. But this was...I don't deal well with emotion."

He decided that a snorting "ya think?" would not be appropriate. Instead he put a hand on her arm as he slid into a parking space in front of the lab. "You're just a person, Bones. And that's okay." He squeezed her arm and tried to diffuse the tension. "This doesn't mean that you can break and enter whenever you want, though."

She took a deep breath. Her voice was a little choked up but she had a tiny smile quirking her mouth."Thanks Booth." She kissed him on the cheek, stepped out of the car and jogged up the Jeffersonian's steps.

Booth watched her as she entered the glass doors. Then he groaned and rested his head on the steering wheel. That was another FBI rule he disliked: don't get involved with your partner.


	3. This Felt Just Like Dying

Disclaimer: Bones is not mine. Really. (Shocker, I know)

**This felt just like dying...**

Sid cut him off at midnight but allowed him to stay in the bar until two AM. There was just a fluorescent strip lighting the bar as Booth nursed his last beer. He wished that he could just be a happy drunk. He hasn't been since the last time he drank beer with his brother and best friend on the roof of their house in Philly. That was just before he went to boot camp. His first day there he saw a Vietnam vet have a panic attack in the front office. Since then drinking had been a temporary file for the jagged edges of his life. Except when he was drinking with..._shut up._

"You know, this much alcohol can't be good for your liver."

"Leave me alone, please." He stared straight ahead, knowing that if he looked at the stool to his left he would see a mirage of his partner and that would carve his chest open just a little more. "I just bought your tombstone, Bones. Have a little compassion, would you?"

"Why would it be hard to buy a slab of stone with my name written on it?" She asked, as genuinely puzzled as the real Bones would have been.

"It's the principle of the thing," he said, taking another sip from the bottle, his eyes fixed on a picture of Sid shaking hands with Harrison Ford. "It's another reminder of your death."

He used to think she was so tied to death: working with corpses all the time, dead family. But then he saw her and Kenton and those dogs. He saw how she struggled, how much she didn't want to die, and he knew that she might visit hell for a while, but she was always there to pull someone else out.

"It would be easier if Cam were handling the funeral arrangements." Even as a hallucination she was interrupting him. "She didn't know us as well, so she will be less affected by our deaths."

She was right, of course. That would be the _logical_ course of action. But Cam didn't know Bones like he did. Cam wouldn't know to bury her wearing her mother's belt buckle and earrings. Maybe Cam would have puzzled, as he did, over who would lead the ceremony or what to write on her tombstone, but she would not have had the overwhelming sense of rightness that he did when he had asked Dr. Goodman back from the university where he was now teaching, or when he had decided just to have her name and dates of birth and death without an epitaph.

Logically Cam should have been the one to identify the bodies as well. It had been almost 6 AM before the...bodies...were dug up. The cadaver dogs had reacted immediately upon reaching the site. If they had been in Maryland or Delaware or even South Carolina, they might have gotten there fast enough to save them. But the dogs were in Cleveland, demonstrating their usefulness at a university. Why couldn't they have been somewhere really useful?!

Booth tried to breath deeply, tried not to remember how the plow had lifted the dirt off of her. Her arms were raised towards the surface; she was trying to get out. Hodgins was below her, his face turned upwards. Except for some bruises, they looked like the perfectly preserved specimens that he had taken Parker to see at the natural history museum. But then the plow had picked them up, Bones looking so limp and tiny in its grasp that he had flinched, and laid them out for the coroner to examine and he saw the backs of their heads: burned and covered in dirty, bleeding wounds. Their hair still gave off a faint scent of explosives and sulfur if he breathed deeply enough...which he didn't currently seem able to.

"We didn't feel anything, you know. Our brains had already shut down before our bodies realized we were asphyxiating. It's not such a horrible way to die."

He remembered sitting in the conference room with his Bones, how she had lied to Mr. Kent. _It's just like falling asleep._ He had looked at her, marveled at how she had changed, but he hadn't said anything. _He hadn't told her_ how amazing she was.

"It's no use beating yourself up. It's over and it wasn't your fault."

"Right, Bones," he said, swinging around and grabbing his jacket, "Not my fault." He stalked towards the door and turned back one last time to see her, still sitting on her stool, her hair deepest auburn in the dim light. "You need to get better at convincing people." He locked the door to Wong Foos, hoping that she would be locked in, knowing that she wouldn't be, and also knowing that he wouldn't want it any other way.

He found Zack in his apartment over Hodgins' garage. He held pills in one hand and a bottle of alcohol -_vodka?-_ in the other as if he didn't know what to do with them. He looked up, startled, as Booth burst through the door and snatched the things out of his hand. Zack followed Booth to the bathroom as the agent dumped the drugs and booze down the toilet and flushed them away.

"How did you get in here?" Zack asked mechanically.

"I have the code," Booth responded gruffly, pressing down the memory of how he got that code. _Hodgins' Halloween party...all the squints...Bones was there...shut up._ He spun around and glared at Zack. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"I failed," the younger man answered simply, "When one is not beneficial to society it is counterproductive for them to use resources that could be put to a better purpose."

_Goddamn squint speak...sounds like Bones...shut up. _His voice came out hoarse. "You failed?"

Zack's eyes glimmered with tears. "I was asked to do one thing of real importance in my entire life. Hodgins sent me that message, he trusted me to understand and I was too late."

"You do things of real importance. Your job brings closure to hundreds of people, Zack. Don't give up on that. We didn't save...them...but don't dishonor them."

Zack looked shellacked and squint-like again. "I have no proof that they exist anymore to be dishonored."

"Just...you have memories of them, lessons that they taught you. Use those things to help other people remember how Hodgins and," he choked on the name, "Brennan helped families. Don't just throw that away."

Zack finally nodded. "Alright."

Booth didn't think he had ever seen Angela without makeup. Even out in the desert with her boyfriend dead or missing, she had still found time to shower and put on something clean. Now it seemed she couldn't make the effort. She stared straight ahead at the tree beside the grave as the wind rippled her skirt. Cam had picked it for her, but they couldn't get her out of the shirt.

"It's the last thing I hugged her in," she had told him tearfully. That was before they had gotten to the graveyard and she had stopped talking or reacting or anything. Her eyes had a flat look all through the service. He understood that. Angela had lost more than any of them. She had lost her maybe-lover and her best friend at the same time. Booth admires her strength. He doesn't know if he would have been able to get out of bed if it had been him. There seems to be an audible sound as the fragile scabs over his heart burst again because he has lost that also. It was just in the form of one person instead of two.

There is quite a crowd at the cemetery. Booth supposes that is to be expected because of the joint funeral. But there are still many people there even on his partner's side alone, more than he knew that she knew. Some are professionals she worked with, some are distraught fans of her novels and some are true friends she made in her travels. He knows without being told, without seeing a recent picture, that the older man standing two rows behind and three seats to the left of Russ that he is Bones's father. He knows from the way his lips are pinched and he twists a ring on his finger. He knows by the way the man's eyes skip one section over to where Christine Brennan is buried. Halfway through the service their eyes meet. Max's eyes ask a question: _are you going to arrest me or are you going to let me say goodbye to my daughter?_ Booth's eyes answer: _you never got to see how she grew up. You deserve this moment. But if I come across you again, do not plan on passing go or collecting $200._

The funeral has been over for twenty minutes and they are the only ones left. He shifts towards Angela and touches her arm, trying to comfort both the woman and the pieces of himself he sees in her. The way she instantly folds herself into him belies her stiff posture. Her tears soak his shirt, each one like a burning ember against his skin, welding itself to his chest. He remembers holding Bones like this at McVicar's farm. Angela's tears overflow his well of guilt as it digs into him again that he will never hold or touch or see or talk to his Bones ever again.

"Can I use your computer?" She whispers quietly.

"Sure. Why?" He asks, confused.

"I can't turn on my computer at home because I know the first thing that will open up is her new manuscript and the second is a joke email from Hodgins and I just can't take that."

"I know." He tightens his arms around her. "But why do you need a computer?"

"I need to type my two weeks notice," she confesses into his neck, "I just can't stay there, not after this."

He nods and doesn't even try to convince her otherwise. He is proud that she is strong enough to keep going. He is not going to ask her to whittle away at her heart every day.

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know," she whispers, finally backing away from him. She blows her nose on the offered tissue, tucks it into her pocket and starts to walk away, her voice floating after her. "I honestly don't know."

"Me either," he murmurs to the emptiness, "I don't know what to do either."

When he was ten, his family had gone to the ocean. He had been walking along the sandy floor when suddenly it wasn't there anymore. He thrashed and sputtered and tried to get back to the surface, but in the end it was his mom who pulled him out of the water, wiped the salt out of his eyes with the corner of a sandy towel and gave him a drink of water to wash the taste from his mouth.

Waking up from this dream gives him the same feelings: the scratchiness in his throat, the gasping for air. But this time it is certainly not his mother who saved him.

"Booth...wake up."

"Huh?" His voice sounds muffled and far away but still panicked. He takes a breath and as his chest expands, he realizes that there's a long ponytail across his midsection. "Bones?"

"Yeah," she says, her voice a mix between sleepy and awake, "What did you dream?"

He winds her hair around his finger to make sure that she's real. Another breath in and he can remember that she has been sharing a bed with him for three years. She knows the nightmares.

"The Gravedigger," he whispers, "I didn't save you."

"Yes you did," she tells him quietly. He loves that she does not admonish him, does not roll her eyes or say that it's been eight years, he should be over it. "You were there and you saved me and I'm here."

"Yeah," he breathes deeply, "You're here."

He relaxes back into the bed. Bones falls back to sleep within minutes, curled against his side. He listens to her breath, listens to Parker's down the hall, listens to the ice maker in the fridge. Finally he tucks himself into Bones and, with one last deep breath, falls asleep.

As he collapses into sleep, he recalls that it is Sunday- church day- and he smiles sleepily. He has so much to be thankful for.

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update. (Get used to it, though. You probably won't get two chapters in a week for a long time.) This is conveniently coming out on Thanksgiving. Most of it was written last week and I didn't realize that it wouldn't be posted until now. Happy Thanksgiving 2008 for Americans and happy 11/27 for everyone else. (Happy Thanksgiving to you too, but it might not have the same significance.)


	4. But Now I See

A/N: I know it's been a while since I posted, but I did not acquire Bones in the interim.

Trying for some humor this time. Sorry it took so long for this to get online. Also, this is going semi-unbetaed for now, so all mistakes are mine, not Scoob's. Love ya, babe.

**But now I see that something inside****...**

It was an unfortunate fact that Dr. Temperance Brennan was completely tactless. It was, however, quite fortunate that most of the time, despite her objections, she had an FBI agent to mediate her interpersonal reactions. But on this particular summer Tuesday her FBI agent was at Disney World with his son. This was not a problem at the crime scene, where she quickly identified the remains of a federal judge and declared the case a suicide. Her lack of people skills did not matter as she went out with Angela for lunch or as she skipped through three limbo cases and did some paperwork. Actually, the problem did not develop until seven o'clock at night, as she was walking home from the lab.

She was not paying attention to where she was going because she had taken a moment to glance at the setting sun and wonder at how Booth had gotten her into the habit of going home while it was still light out. She was shaking her head in contemplation as a young mother with a stroller came around the corner. They crashed into each other, causing the mother to be jolted back and Brennan to fall against a building rubbing aching shins. The stroller in all its thick plastic glory was the only thing led unscathed but its passenger began to cry anyway. Seeing the mother torn between picking up the spilled things from her bag before they were crushed by oncoming foot traffic and tending to her fussing baby, Brennan knelt and began to place the item neatly in the young woman's purse. Wordlessly, the stranger went to soothe what Brennan could now see was a baby boy. Once the baby was calm, Brennan handed over the bag and the woman looked into her face.

"I'm Jean Fletcher," she said putting out her hand, "Thank you so much for your help."

"Temperance Brennan." Brennan took the offered hand, shook it firmly and tried to formulate an appropriately polite yet dismissive response. "I'm so sorry I wasn't paying attention..."

"Temperance Brennan the author?!" Jean interrupted her.

Brennan tried not to be annoyed by this flagrant breech of courtesy by someone who she was sure was considered to have perfectly acceptable people skills. "Yes," she replied after asking herself WWBD (what would Booth do) and deciding that he would be unflaggingly polite and cheerful no matter how high pitched and grating Jean's voice was and despite how her body had become accustomed to a set dinner time.

"Oh my goodness," Jean squealed in a breathless way that made Temperance sure that this story would be the center of the next family gathering. She dug in her bag for a pen and a book, which she held out to Brennan as if she were swearing in the president. "Would you please sign my book?"

"Sure," Brennan replied, her official Booth issue charming public officer smile firmly in place. She was just handing the book back to a wide-eyed Jean when an elderly man stepped up to her and gave over his copy of Bred in the Bone for her to sign.

"I just bought it yesterday," he told her eagerly as Jean trotted away while simultaneously whipping out her cell phone, "And I'm already seven chapters in. It's one of the best mysteries I've read in years, and believe me I know my mysteries. Just last night I was telling my wife Audrey- after Audrey Hepburn, you know- anyway, I said 'Audie, you really have got to read these new Temperance Brennan stories,' and she told me 'Herb,' (I'm Herb Madison, by the way, of Bethesda, feel free to look me up any time you're in the area) 'Herb,' she said, 'There is just too much cadaver in those novels for me.' She's a big fan of Agatha Christie, Audie is, but there's too much talking and deduction in those and not enough of the real murder. You're very good with the detail about the bodies. I know because I was a medic over in Korea. I was already in college when the fighting started in Nam, so I avoided the draft, but when they started asking for men to go to Korea, I figured it was my duty to sign up right away because. My pop fought in the Second World War, naval services, and he was so proud when he saw me in my uniform. I had just married Audrey and she cried and waved her handkerchief, just like in the movies, except she was much prettier..."

As Herb Madison of Bethesda continued to spill the story of his life to her, Temperance was frantically signing the books being shoved at her. The crowd had gathered to fill the corner and spill around the block.

"Please form an orderly line," she called desperately, but this time there was no publicist or bookstore staff to organize everyone and keep them from pushing each other like reporters at a press conference.

"Ms. Brennan," a tall man shouted, using his height to try to hand her his book.

"Actually it's Dr. Brennan," she corrected, taking the book and hastily scrawling what she feverishly hoped was her name or something that could pass for it.

"Yes, you stupid cow," a solid looking matron said scornfully, "didn't you know she's a doctor?" The middle-aged woman elbowed to the front of the crowd and handed her book over. "I'm Eleanor Crowley. I'm a huge fan," she said, her tone changing to sweet honey.

"Lovely to meet you," Brennan replied, her nose already in the next person's copy. The light was beginning to dim and she pursed her lips at the thought of what Booth would say when he asked what time she had gotten home.

Officer Jim Cochran of the DCPD was usually even tempered, but right before the evening shift his eldest had rushed out the door informing him that he had promised to let her go to Florida for spring break (he most certainly had not), wife had handed him the phone bill that his second eldest had pushed up with calls to her foreign pen pal (wasn't the point to write to the other kid?!), his son had crashed his bike into a telephone pole (the new ten speed he had gotten for his birthday, damn it) and his youngest daughter had told him that he couldn't read her a bedtime story anymore because Mommy was so much better at it. The last probably hurt the most because he was still stinging from the previous evening when little Maddie had informed him that the daddy of one of the boys in her class (Paul? Patrick?) had come in to read a story and _he _had done funny voices.

So when he saw a crowd shoving at each other at the corner of 15th and V Street, a grin spread over his face at the chance to take out some of the frustration inside him. Pushing his way through the mass of people with a combination of badge flashing, yelling "Police!" and brute force. When he reached the center of the assemblage, there was a beautiful woman frantically signing books. The blue of his uniform caught her eye and she looked up.

"Oh thank God," she blurted, starting to autograph more books after she had caught his eye for a second, "Would you please have them form an orderly line?"

Jim's earlier grin disappeared so quickly that it couldn't even be called fading. "I'm afraid I can't do that ma'am," he said gruffly, inwardly wincing as he realized that his voice was an octave lower than usual.

"Why not?" She asked, surprised enough to glance up at him for a second. "All you have to do is wave your badge and shout 'DC police' and I'm sure they'll listen. I would do it myself, but I'm not tall enough and I don't have a badge."

Jim's blood boiled. He had come in to do some yelling and save the damsel and now this witch was expecting him to do crowd control?! And treating him like an idiot as well.

"Ma'am, you're going to have to come with me," he informed her.

"Thank you for the escort, but I'm afraid that if I leave now they'll hurt each other. I'm a New York Times best-selling author, you know, and they really want my autograph"

"I'm arresting you for causing a public disturbance!" Jim shouted, his control snapping. Just his luck that the woman he thought he was saving from the menacing crowd was actually a snobby egoist.

"Causing a public disturbance?!" Her voice was scornful, showing how ridiculous she found him, but her anger was betrayed as she almost shut a fan's finger in his copy of the novel. "They all gathered here. I'm just trying to keep them happy."

"Ma'am, you're holding a book signing in the middle of the street," Jim protested, trying not to feel cowed under her glare. He took a breath and regained some of his professional equilibrium. "I'm going to have to take you in."

She pursed her lips and signed one last book. "Sorry everyone, that's all. I'm being arrested," she shouted over the protests.

Jim had never played an instrument. He was not old enough to have worked at a Vietnam protest or a banned concert. He had no experience with being booed. But here was this crowd booing him as he handcuffed the vain author. People were throwing pens, balled up paper and even shoes at him. The only thing he was able to duck was the latter. The crowd dispersed, grumbling, as he led the woman to the squad car.

Under normal circumstances, Brennan would have used her phone call to get Booth over to the jail. Unfortunately he would still be in Florida for another day, so Angela was pulled away from her date to come help out her friend.

"Bren, this is the second time this year," Angela complained as she breezed into the precinct. She was still dressed up from the expensive restaurant where she had been eating and Jim's gaze was riveted to her backside. "What were you doing this time?"

"I was just signing some autographs," Brennan protested, "It started with one person and then there were a hundred."

"Sweetie," Angela sighed, "You work with geeks all day. When will you learn that the quiet mystery novel lovers are the most dangerous?"

"Well at first I thought it would be courteous to give one to a woman I bumped into..."

Angela waved a tired hand and took out her wallet. "How much is your bail?"

"Well they didn't set me bail."

"Why did you call me if they didn't set bail?! The purpose of calling a friend is so they can come and pay money to get you out of whatever shenanigans you've gotten into."

Jim cleared his throat, looking slightly sheepish. Now that the woman was in a cell, the whole incident seemed like a foolish result of his bad temper. Of course he couldn't let the author, her gorgeous friend or any of the other officers know that he had arrested an author for signing some books. "The court won't be in session until tomorrow morning. Dr. Brennan will have to stay overnight."

"Can't you take her to night court or something?" Angela asked pleadingly, now glad that she hadn't reprimanded the officer for his wandering eyes.

"Night court isn't what you see in the TV show," Jim blustered, "It's better for Dr. Brennan just to wait here until tomorrow morning."

"You don't think I can handle night court? I hitchhiked through China with just the clothes on my back and I managed to esca-"

"Sweetie, this is not the time to get defensive," Angela muttered out of the corner of her mouth. Luckily for the protesting anthropologist, the phone at the front desk rang.

"I'm going to go answer that," Jim told the women, "Don't touch anything."

"Oh, you mean like my cot? Or the bars of my cell?!" Brennan shouted after him before plunking down on the cot in the corner to mutter, "At least the jail in Zimbabwe they had propaganda pamphlets to read."

Angela decided to forgo the obvious questions of 'You were in jail in Zimbabwe?' 'How many languages do you know?' and 'What language do they speak in Zimbabwe anyway?' and instead got down to business. "Sweetie, we're going to have to flash him."

"WHAT?!" Brennan whisper-shouted, her eyes wide.

"That man is having a bad day and he's taking it out on you," Angela said, her trained mantenna picking up on Jim's mood.

"And how does that lead to us flashing him?"

"Not flash flash," Angela clarified, "Just a tasteful little display to put old Jim there in a better mood. All you have to do is go 'I'm so hot,' and shrug off your jacket."

When Jim returned he found the author sitting in her cell while her friend had dragged over a chair. The two of them seemed to be laughing over something that had happened at work that day.

"And then Hodgins accidentally smashed the case with the helium," the brunette recounted.

"Good thing Booth wasn't there," the author chuckled, "He'd never let him forget it."

"Bren, mentioning Booth while he's on vacation? Definite sign that there's something going on with you two."

"There is nothing going on with me and Booth," Brennan protested, "We're just partners."

"Sure," Angela said teasingly/knowingly, "You know, I'm a big fan of friends first, but you've been partners for almost a year-"

"Six months!"

Angela continued as if her best friend hadn't said anything. "-And that man isn't going to stay single forever. I mean, have you looked at him lately? He's a hottie!"

Brennan glared at the artist. "Speaking of hottie, it's getting quite warm in here," she bit out.

As Jim watched, she proceeded to slip off her jacket and one of her t-shirts, leaving her in only a tank top. "I just hope I don't have to sleep in this heat all night," she ad-libbed, hoping that Officer Cochran would be induced to let her out. Angela winced furtively at her friend's loud voice and overacting. The two glanced at Jim out of the corners of their eyes. Brennan deduced from the way he was shuffling papers that he was working and hadn't noticed her new state of undress. But Angela caught the shiftiness in his eyes, the slight blush across his cheekbones and the way he was flipping through papers without really looking at any one. She knew that he was all too aware of what was going on in the cell. He just needed a little more pushing to be just where she wanted him. Maybe he wouldn't become jolly enough to let Brennan out, but they could embarrass him enough to make him cave.

"It is hot in here," Angela agreed, stripping off her own top shirt. Jim didn't make a move, not even to pretend to work. _Almost there..._

"Hey, sweetie, do you want to play cards?" Angela pulled out her obligatory deck of cards from her purse.

"Sure," Brennan replied, unsure where this was going, "What do you want to play?"  
"How about poker?" Angela suggested wickedly, "Strip poker?"

Jim gulped.

Ten minutes later Brennan had lost her shoes and Angela her watch. Jim was frozen behind his desk hoping that both the women would suddenly become tremendously adept at cards and would come to a deadlock so that neither would lose any more clothing. He was saved as the door to the office opened and Seeley Booth rushed in, demanding to know what the hell was going on before turning to his arrested partner.

"I'm away for less than a week and you manage to get yourself into the big house?"

Once he had stopped yelling, he had a chance to take stock (two women, cards, various items of clothing strewn around, a cowering police officer) and he froze.

"Why do I feel like I'm in the middle of a porno?" He asked uncertainly at the same time that Brennan shouted, "You called Booth?!" (She seemed to have forgotten that she had thought about doing the exact same thing. It now seemed very embarrassing to be gotten out of trouble by Booth.)

"No!" Angela protested, "I was on the phone with Booth when you called and said you needed help. I told him not to come."

"No," Booth countered, pointing a finger at Angela, "What you said was 'Brennan's in jail and she needs bail money.'"

"Wait, Booth, why are you back?" Brennan asked, distracted.

"Turns out my coupon was for a free stay for three days and two nights, not the other way around. It was cheaper just to grab a flight back than to fight for a hotel room during spring break."

"And you called Angela first instead of me?" She continued to badger him, trying to hide the hurt in her voice.

"No," Angela interrupted, "He called you first and then he called me to ask why you weren't picking up."

"All this is lovely really," Jim snapped, coming to stand in the middle of the three before turning to Booth, "But who are you?"

With an easy, practiced gesture, Booth whipped out his badge. "Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI. What are the charges being laid against Dr. Brennan?"

Jim drew himself up. "Dr. Brennan was a public disruption of the peace."

Booth raised skeptical eyebrows. "Bones? What was she doing, lecturing everyone about how to properly use a sinus probe?"

"I was signing books, Booth," Brennan informed him tiredly.

"Signing books, huh," he looked over at her with humor in his eyes before turning towards Jim. "Can I talk to you for a second."

The two men stepped over into a corner and began to talk in low voices.

"What do you think they're saying?" Brennan asked quietly.

"Booth probably read his mood, realized that the charges were trumped up bull, told him so and promised not to embarrass him in front of his buddies. You'll be out of here in no time."

Sure enough, after a few minutes of negotiation, Officer Cochran brought out his keys and opened the door to Brennan's cell.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, Dr. Brennan," he grumbled, "Have a good night."

Brennan opened her mouth to argue about the application of the word 'inconvenience', but Booth pulled her towards the door. As she fell into step on his left, Angela on his right, she realized that maybe it was a good idea to have her FBI agent around to work with the people.

"How was Disney World?" She asked, trying to remind him that she could be polite and make small talk as well as the next person. She was independent and didn't need him to guide her all the time. Except, you know, when she was in jail. "Did Parker like it?"

"Of course, he loved it," Booth replied enthusiastically, "His favorite ride was the Peter Pan ride at the Magic Kingdom..."

Jim Cochran collapsed in his chair and listened as the voices faded down the hallway. Something niggled at the back of his mind and it wasn't until he had sat down to write a report of the whole humiliating incident (how in the world was he going to manage to keep himself from sounding completely ridiculous?) that he realized what it was. The story voices dad that Maddie had been so enamored with was not Payton or Palmer's father, he was Parker's father and if he was not mistaken that was the author's "partner" who he had just met. Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jim remembered the women standing on either side of the FBI agent. Apparently Seeley Booth was popular with ladies of all ages. Cochran shook his head. 'The eyes are probably the draw. Women always love big puppy dog eyes. That'll be it.'


End file.
